Month: January 2015

… and just like that it’s February! Not like I wanted to make up any conspiracies but I feel 2015 has its very own lofty goal of beating the last year in terms of speed. How in the world did January fly by in the blink of an eye??? Okay, I’ll spare you the rambling. But still …

Good thing this month hasn’t only passed by fast but left all of us with even more inspiring, thought-provoking reads and even more recipes to pin actually try. Here are some of my favourites – enjoy!

Our self-confidence should never depend on outside judgement but first and foremost come from within. Easier said than done but this example shows it’s so worth working on it. One comment shouldn’t ruin our day.

Move over [for a minute], potatoes! The second non-‘tater tot in a post but can you ever have too many?!

Happiness-inducing today: Overhearing two guys in the line behind me at the store – one of them apparently being some kind of artist – talking about work-related travels to a small town. It happened to be one close to where I grew up so I chimed in and we had a short chat about it. You know I like talking to strangers.

I’m still in disbelief of the enormous response to my recent blog post. If you’re a ‘big’ blogger you might be used to that happening on the regular but for me it was a shock. Albeit of the positive kind. The reason why I didn’t expect anything like this? This very post was probably the least edited and touched up I’ve written to date. All it was meant to be was a reminder to myself. A reminder that while recovery isn’t easy and I have ‘those’ days everything is better than falling back into old habits. Skinny can’t hold a candle to life.

Thank you once more for commenting and sharing – and by that I don’t just mean via social media but sharing your own experiences and stories in the comments. It meant the world to me.

In trying to understand why the post went viral I noticed a few [apparent] ‘secrets’/reasons so they’re what I’ve been thinking about [and only now out loud].

Maybe it sounds ridiculous to an outsider – wait for it, I’ll explain in a moment – but my first thoughts were: How in the world could that post be my most shared, commented and recommened yet? Don’t get me wrong. The post, the message – it was 100% me and meant that way. But: I’d spent a fraction of the time I work on many other posts on it. No writing and re-writing it for days. Yet – maybe that was the secret? Maybe you related so well because it was raw, authentic and not me trying to meet any expectations of myself or anybody else?

Write just for yourself and like nobody’s reading. Like I mentioned above that post was written for a simple purpose. I hadn’t planned it nor did I edit much. It just came about while eating dinner on Monday night and looking back I honestly can’t see why I published it.

Keep the editing to a minimum. This one’s really hard for a perfectionist like me. But looking back at why some of my past posts didn’t feel like ‘me’ anymore once published and why the response was shy I saw: I’d out-edited my personality. If I couldn’t recognize myself again in these – how could any readers?

Don’t be afraid of speaking your mind. We can never please everybody else [old news, I know] but that’s actually what keeps blogging – or any kind of socializing – interesting. How boring of a world would we live in if everybody agreed with everything we said? No, thanks, bring on the discussion!

The reasons why I haven’t been following these rules in many of my previous posts? For one, I’m still not feeling confident enough in my writing. I’m not a native speaker and sometimes feel I can’t articulate the exact points I want to make as well as I would in German.

More so, however, there’s a worry that was implemented throughout my ED: the fear of not pleasing others or – worse – rubbing them off the wrong way. It makes no sense when you think about it. I want to be easy-going, speak my mind – and all too often let perfectionism hinder me. Realizing this now I could have published a lot more posts that are 100 % true to me – a peek into my drafts folder would tell you – if it wasn’t for my inner critic stopping me. Saying that somebody else has said it better before or will potentially do in the future. And yes, the pond of blog post ideas might not be endless so a topic we pick up could have been featured elsewhere before.

But it’s about the individual spin. No two people and their opinions are exactly the same and not every of your readers will have seen that post about [insert topic] by [insert blogger] before. So let’s be bold. Go out and say what we feel like saying. We’re writing for ourselves after all, remember? So that post I talked about recently? It wasn’t last week’s. But now it will see the light of the day. Maybe nobody will care. Maybe some people will disagree. It shouldn’t matter as long as it’s genuinely what I feel like sharing.

Dance like nobody’s watching. Write like nobody’s judging. It sounds pretty good to me.

Happiness-inducing today: Some good news on a day that overall wasn’t too amazing. It’s about focusing on the little things [broken record but true].

First things first: Wow. Thank you so much! I couldn’t – probably still can’t – believe the incredible responses to my post on Thursday. What was honestly a matter-of-minutes post and reminder to myself seems to resonate with so many of you so if you haven’t seen it yet you might want to check what I’m referring to.

Anway, the spotlight is on your posts from the week today. Because there hasn’t been a shortage of great and inspiring reads from all around the blog world, either. If the weather around your parts is anything like here – read: cold and snowy – you might agree it’s the best day ever to catch up on recent online happenings: there you go!

Salty and sweet candied peanuts done the healthy way – no refined sugar, vegan and customizable to your liking. Easy enough to prepare on the go for a quick snack or appetizer.

If there’s one thing I can tell about my colleagues it’s that they’re huge snackers. And while they might not understand my obsession with nut butters – or at least not the three people I told about my rather extensive collection of nut butter jars so far – they do enjoy nuts. I mean: who wouldn’t?? Only a nutty person [could my puns be any more predictable?].

It wasn’t until Christmas time rolled around and with it the appearance of cookie trays, cake and the occasional chocolate santa that I found out my coworkers weren’t immune to the allurance of all kinds of snacks, either. The best day was when a colleague treated the rest of the staff to one of my favourite seasonal sweets: candied nuts. Oh. my. These were some crack nuts. The legal kind.

And then the other week I was introduced to a special variety of these by another colleague on a particularly long day of work: honey-roasted peanuts. Gah. So good. If I remember correctly* [I did] the latter had just the lightest bit of a salty touch to them which – we learned that – made them even more irresistible. Aside from the fact they kept me sane and my brain running they were delicious, too.

*I didn’t see the package prior to eating them as they were already poured into a bowl hence the guess.

Did I say delicious? They were crack. That fact affirmed itself when I snacked on the remainders the next day when the pressure and nerve-wracking tasks were gone [note: staying in the office from 9 AM until somewhere around 11 PM is no fun when you don’t get a mention ahead of time. Or in anyway.]. Actually my fondness of them wasn’t too surprising as I’ve been a huge fan of those sesame-coated almonds sold in Greece – any other Greece vacationers remember them?? – forever already. Hm, looking at the number of varieties of candied nuts I mentioned in this post it looks like the obsession with crack-ed nuts started very early on. We can agree I have quite a long list of nutty memories. Of the edible not the crazy kind.

Anyway, after trying those honey-roasted ones my colleague brought to the office I picked up a bag the next time I was at the store. The ingredient list was surprisingly … long for something this simple:

Honestly?! A whopping threeper cent of honey in something bearing it in its name??? Geez. Needless to say I didn’t buy them.

Because that list of the storebought variety was clearly longer than necessary and I knew I could easily roll the vegan way I decided to give it a go myself. In true health nut fashion I obviously had to add a pinch of chia seeds to half of the batch – last minute decision hence the small amount, more next time. But if you don’t have any on hand the nuts are awesome without them already. Also, I went with peanuts because that’s what I had at hand but you could really use any kind of [edible 😉 ] nuts you have lying around. The sky’s the limit. If using unsalted nuts I’d recommend sprinkling them with a little bit of sea salt before baking. Either way, you’re in for a treat. Get ready to be addicted.

Healthy Candied Peanuts

1 cup (140 g) salted peanuts

1 tbsp (10 g) maple syrup

1 heaping tbsp (28 g) brown rice syrup

pinch of cinnamon

optional: 1 tsp (or more) of chia seeds

Preheat oven to 325 °F/165 °C.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a bowl, mix maple and brown rice syrup plus a pinch of cinnamon. Stir very well to combine.

Add in the peanuts and stir to coat.

If you’re using chia seeds, add them to half the batch or double the amount for the whole one.

Spread the nuts evenly on the baking sheet and roast in the oven for 15 minutes. Watch closely [oven temperatures vary!] an and stir at least once in between.

Let cool before breaking apart the clusters that have formed!! Hot caramel doesn’t feel good on bare hands. Patience will be rewarded.

Go wild on the nuts or be social and share. No judgement if you don’t.

Happiness-inducing today: Getting a text from my sister asking me to revision an application she’s written. Short story long: She’s older than me and I’ve always admired her for her creativity. That’s why it’s nice to know there are times when we change roles and she tells me she felt better about sending it out if I edited it before.

Not to get all grammar-nerdy on you but I feel we also need to get this error out of the way first – because it makes a notable difference: skinny is not a feeling. It’s a physical state of being and as such pre-destined to be temporary. The colours in artworks fade. Houses go rack and ruin. Bodies change, get wrinkles, loose their youthfulness. Happiness on the other hand won’t fade.

Been there, done that. And I know what skinny is like.

Skinny feels and looks like

… turning on the radiator in the office and giving a stank eye to anybody who dares opening the window because you’re freezing.

… not feeling anything besides the ruthless cold when outside on a winter day.

… constantly missing something. Not just food.

… envying people who just go out and about their days, not limited by their exercise or food routine.

… faint at times when you decide an hour on the elliptical – pre-breakfast, obviously, because that’s what magazines tell you – doesn’t cut it.

… memories of counting down the minutes until the next ‘meal’ you allowed yourself even if it only contained of a low-fat pudding cup. That you ate over the course of an hour so the waiting period until the next meal wasn’t too long.

… knowing how much you hurt your family and friends who see you struggle and want to help but can’t.

… the desire to make it all stop. Just wake up the next morning and join everybody else in their [at least food-wise] free-spirited ways.

… exhaustion. Constant exhaustion and overwhelm.

… the excruciating pain of toes and fingers gone numb after a walk out in the cold and then slooowly warming up again inside. If you’ve never experienced this: trust me it hurts like crazy. And then some.

… #hangrybitch. 24/7.

… the constant desire to get that something missing from your life. And we’re not talking about food only.

What skinny most definitely lacks: the feeling of happiness. Light-heartedness. The brain capacity to think [out loud and elsewise] properly.

Given the choice between the dreaded weight gain, discomfort of eating ‘too much’, struggles and occasionally not resisting temptation to click on that link I know I shouldn’t: I’d still forego skinny for happy any day. And for chocolate. Nut butter.

Kate,

I sincerely hope you won’t wake up one day – maybe once your career is over and an even skinnier girl has taken over – and wonder where life went. Skinny might have the momentary thrill and starving can give the current high [that you’re still seeking in certain illegal substances but I digress]. But at the end of our lives what counts more than our weight are the days, weeks and years lived making happy [and delicious] memories. I know I’ve missed out on too many moments already and . What about you?

They say that change is good [who in the world are they, though??] so we’ll take that as a given. Change here means I decided that I won’t keep up the good good links anymore.

… in their current form. Don’t worry – because you were worrying, right ;)?! – these aren’t going anywhere. Rather, I’ll no longer limit myself to publishing dates of posts featured that much. You might have noticed me adding ‘oldie but goodie’ posts in recent editions already and from now on they might very well become more frequent. That’s to honor the fact that what I’m reading day by day aren’t just posts from the week but also older ones on newly-discovered blogs that I think are worth reading. This won’t mean I’ll feature that post I know for a fact everybody and their brother have shared on their blogs, Twitter and wherever else already. I’m hoping to make room for overlooked posts that deserve a little more attention.